David Mitchell - The Bone Clocks

Arkady broke the gloomy silence: “If you think this, so must the enemy. Why would Pfenninger risk giving us access to the Blind Cathar when he can stalemate us to death?”

“Because of his cardinal vice: vanity. Pfenninger wants to annihilate Horology in one glorious act of slaughter, so he’s offering us, his desperate enemy, this trap. But it’ll also give us a narrow window of time inside the Chapel. It won’t come again.”

“And what do we do with that narrow window of time,” countered L’Ohkna, “apart from being butchered, body and soul?”

“That,” I confessed, “I cannot answer. But I heard from someone who may be able to. I didn’t dare refer to this outside 119A, but now we’re all here, lend an old friend your ears …” I produced an ancient Walkman and inserted a BASF cassette.

WENDY HANGER’S FINGERS drum on the wheel while four lanes of traffic cross the intersection. She has no ring on her finger. The light turns green, but she doesn’t notice until the truck behind us blasts its horn. She pulls off, stalls, mutters, “Oh, for heaven’s sake. Chevrolet, ignition!” We drive off, past a big Home Depot, and soon we’ve left Poughkeepsie behind. I ask, “How long to Blithewood?”

“Thirty, forty minutes.” Wendy Hanger puts a nicotine gum stick into her mouth and her sternocleidomastoideus ripples with every chew. The road winds between and under trees. Their buds are on the cusp of opening. A sign says RED HOOK 7 MILES. We overtake a pair of cyclists, and Wendy Hanger musters the courage: “Dr. Fenby, could I … uh, ask you a question?”

“Ask away.”

“This might sound like I’m outta my freaking tree.”

“You’re in luck, Ms. Hanger. I’m a psychiatrist.”

“Does the name ‘Marinus’ ring any bells?”

I hadn’t seen that coming. We don’t hide our true names, but neither do we advertise them. “Why do you ask?”

Wendy Hanger’s breathing is ragged. “Dunno how I knew it, but I knew it. Look, I–I—I’m sorry, I gotta pull over.” Around the next bend there’s a timely rest area with a bench and a view of woodland sloping down to the Hudson River. Wendy Hanger turns around. She’s sweating and wide-eyed. Her dolphin air freshener swings in diminishing arcs. “Do you know a Marinus — or are you Marinus?”

The cyclists we passed not long ago speed by.

“I go by that name in certain circles,” I say.

Her face trembles. It’s scarred with childhood acne. “Ho- ly crap.” She shakes her head. “ You could hardly’ve been born yet. Jeez, I really need a smoke.”

“Don’t take your stress out on your bronchial tubes, Ms. Hanger. Stick to the gum. Now. I’m overdue an explanation.”

“This isn’t”—she frowns—“this isn’t some kinda setup?”

“I wish it was, because then I’d know what was happening.”

Suspicion, angst, and disbelief slug it out in Wendy Hanger’s face, but no clear winner emerges. “Okay, Doctor. Here’s the story. When I was younger, in Milwaukee, I went off the rails. Family issues, a divorce … substance abuse. My stepsister booted me out, and by the end, moms were, like, steering their kids across the road to avoid me. I was …” She flinches. Old memories still keep their sting.

“An addict,” I state calmly, “which means you’re now a survivor.”

Wendy Hanger chews her gum a few times. “I guess I am. New Year’s Eve 1983, though, the holiday lights all pretty — Jeez, I was no survivor then. I hit rock bottom, broke into my stepsister’s house, found her sleeping pills, swallowed the entire freakin’ bottle with a pint of Jim Beam. That movie The Towering Inferno was on, as I … sank away. You ever see it?” Before I can answer, a sports car storms by and Wendy Hanger shudders. “I woke up in the hospital with tubes in my stomach and throat. My stepsister’s neighbor had seen the TV on, come over, and found me. Called an ambulance in the nick of time. People think sleeping pills are painless, but that’s not true. I’d no idea a stomach could hurt that much. I slept, woke, slept some more. Then I woke in the geriatric ward, which totally freaked me out ’cause I thought I’d aged,” Wendy Hanger does a bitter laugh, “and been in a coma for forty years, and was now, like, ancient. But there was this woman there, sitting by my bed. I didn’t know if she was staff or a patient or a volunteer, but she held my hand and asked, ‘Why are you here, Miss Hanger?’ I hear her now. ‘Why are you here, Wendy?’ She spoke kinda funny, like with an accent, but … I don’t know where from. She wasn’t black, but wasn’t quite white. She was … kind, like a … a gruff angel, who wouldn’t blame you or judge you for what you’d done or for what life’d done to you. And I–I heard myself telling her things I …” Wendy Hanger gazes at the backs of her hands, “… I never told anyone. Suddenly it was midnight. This woman smiled at me and said, ‘You’re over the worst. Happy New Year.’ And … I just freakin’ burst into tears. I don’t know why.”

“Did she tell you her name?”

Wendy’s eyes are a challenge.

“Was her name Esther Little, Wendy?”

Wendy Hanger breathes in deep: “She said you’d know that. She said you’d know. But you can’t have been more than a girl in 1984. What’s going on? How … Jeez .”

“Did Esther Little give you a message to give to me?”

“Yes. Yes, Doctor. She asked me , a homeless, suicidal addict whom she’d known for all of, like, two or three hours, to pass on a message to a colleague named Marinus. I–I—I–I asked, ‘Is “Marinus” like a Christian name, a surname, an alias?’ But Esther Little said, ‘Marinus is Marinus,’ and told me to tell you … to tell you …”

“I’m listening, Wendy. Go on.”

“ ‘Three on the Day of the Star of Riga.’ ”

The world’s hushed. “Three on the Day of the Star of Riga?”

“Not a word more, not a word less.” She studies me.

The Star of Riga . I know I’ve known that phrase, and I reach for the memory, but my fingers pass through it. No. I’ll have to be patient.

“ ‘Riga’ meant nothing,” Wendy Hanger chews what must now be a flavorless lump of gum, “back in my hospital bed in Milwaukee, so I asked her the spelling: R-I-G-A. Then I asked where I’d find this Marinus, so I could deliver the message. Esther said no, the time wasn’t right yet. So I asked when the time would be right. And she said,” Wendy Hanger swallows, her carotid artery pulsing fast, “ ‘The day you become a grandmother.’ ”

Pure Esther Little. “Many congratulations,” I tell Wendy Hanger. “Granddaughter or grandson?”

She looks more perturbed by this, not less. “A girl. My daughter-in-law gave birth in Santa Fe, early this morning. She wasn’t due for another two weeks, but just after midnight, Rainbow Hanger was born. Her people are hippies. But, look, you gotta … I mean, I thought Esther maybe had on-and-off dementia, or … Jeez . What sane person’d beg such a wacko favor off of anyone, least of all an addict who’d just swallowed a hundred sleeping pills? I asked her. Esther said the addict in me had died, but that the real me, she’d survived. I’d be fine from now on, she said. She said the ‘Riga’ message and its due date were written in permanent marker, and on the right day, years from now, Marinus’d find me, but your name’d be different and—” Wendy Hanger’s sniffling and her eyes are streaming. “ Why’m I crying?”

I hand her a packet of tissues.

“Is she still alive? She’d be, like … ancient.”

“The woman you met has passed on.”